Blog:Facebooking reveals social drink binges

Previously, only the rich and famous used to fear their personal life being held up for speculation and ridicule.

Taboid-tastic, we sit, gawping over our Sunday rag, at the latest shocking expose or paparazzi snappage.

But now, there's Facebook and it seems, any average Joe, myself included, *ahem* can be scrutinised by the world. Scary stuff.

The latest debacle involves a Tory councillor glumly receiving a stern ticking off today (19 September), after a photograph of him surfaced on the friends networking website showing him semi-naked and with his arms round scantily-clad women and drinking.

Some guys get all the breaks.

Steven Ricketts, seen drinking from a hosepipe and leaning against a pub wall with his head in his hands, listed his interests as "Drinking, smoking, politics, football, fitness and socialising" without a thought for the public image he evidently hopes to uphold. Tsk tsk.

Alcohol Concern has said: "The country rails against teenage drinking.We need adults like this to think carefully about their influence on young people."

Liberal Democrat MP Sandra Gidley, who launched an Alcohol Harm Reduction Bill, took the opportunity to also add: "He should be campaigning to cut down on young people drinking, not condoning it."

Ricketts, Plymouth's youngest city councillor, allegedly defended his photo gallery and personality profile with the plea: "I'm not doing anything wrong. I'm a young person, single and living my life."